Cornell Video

People evolved to exaggerate potential threats in their environment; overcaution could assure safety in the wild. Biased exaggerations in everyday social spaces, however, are inaccurate and damaging. People who feel threatened by “groups whose beliefs and worldviews seem different from the mainstream” perceive these groups as growing in size. These inaccuracies are socially and culturally damaging, and are not distinct to any one identity or political group. “We can all fall into this trap,” Rifkin says. “It’s critical to slow down and check our snap judgments whenever we’re sizing up new environments and the people within them.”